From the Council on Foreign RelationsL Iran Threatens Retaliation

Top of the Agenda: Iran Threatens Retaliation

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran would retaliate (Reuters) over Western-backed sanctions targeting its oil exports and threats of an attack on its nuclear facilities. The United States and the EU, which is in the process of imposing an oil embargo on Iran, contend that the country's nuclear program is intended for manufacturing weapons. Khamenei's speech followed reports suggesting that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta believes Israel could launch an attack on Iran as early as this spring.

Analysis

"The best option is the third one, a version of current policy, which is to place as much economic pressure as one can on Iran--not that it will get them to end their nuclear program, but rather to lead the Iranians to calculate that the costs of proceeding as they are are simply too great, and therefore it makes sense to change their behavior," says CFR President Richard N. Haass in this interview.

"If the United States seriously considers military action, it would be better to plan an operation that not only strikes the nuclear program but aims to destabilize the regime, potentially resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis once and for all," write Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt in Foreign Affairs.

"The United States should heed the lessons of the North Korean nuclearization. Not so long ago, Washington had to face an aggressive regime in Pyongyang intent on developing nuclear weapons. The United States rejected a preventive strike in 1994 for fear that the outcome would be worse than its target's nuclear acquisition," write Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro in Foreign Affairs.